THE NAVAL BATTLE OFF PLYMOUTH
Thus the chronicler: “The Spanish Invasion being brought to a crisis,
after the most assiduous application of three whole years to fit out
that fleet vainly named by the Pope the great, noble and invincible
Armada and Terror of Europe.... King Philip gave orders for its sailing
on the 19th of May 1588. It consisted of 134 sail of tall towering
ships, besides gallies, galliasses and galleons.” The fleet carried
8766 mariners, 21,855 soldiers, and 2088 galley slaves; together,
32,709 men, irrespective of Spanish Dons and their attendants, priests,
surgeons, and servitors of all sorts.
First, and before all things, it was to be understood that the motives
of his Spanish Majesty were truly religious--” to serve God, and to
return unto his Church a great many contrite souls ... oppressed by
heretics, enemies to our Holy Catholic Faith.”
Britain, as usual, was unready; but a fleet was got together in only
50 days. The City of London being desired to furnish 5000 men and 15
ships, provided 10,000 men and 30 ships, and at this great crisis in
our national life there was “such a zealous love and duty throughout
the nation towards the Queen as is inexpressible.” Britons were Britons
in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth; “an uncommon joy and alacrity
appeared in the face of every one. They were pleased with the thought
of contributing, every man in his way, towards the defence of their
country, their liberties, and their Queen.”
The English fleet consisted of 80 ships manned by 9000 sailors, and not
all those were available when the Armada was sighted off the Lizard,
disposed in a crescent seven miles long from horn to horn; but when the
Spanish admiral got back to Spain in late September he had but 60 sail
out of his 134. Thus, with the loss of only one small ship and about a
hundred men, England remained the mistress of the seas. Shame, loss,
and dishonour had befallen her treacherous enemy. _Venit, Vidit, Fugit!_
And now, three hundred and twenty-two years after the winds and the
waves had come to the aid of England, another fleet of vastly different
character had been sighted from the Lizard--insignificant, relatively,
in point of numbers, but immeasurably more powerful in type and
armament. And once again a British fleet came out from Plymouth, to
watch and, if need were, to fight the foreigner.
After the first and unexpected appearance of the German battleships
and cruisers off Plymouth--made known to London by the special _Epoch_
on Christmas Day--certain mysterious manœuvres followed. But when
eager observations were taken early on the morning of Bank Holiday,
not one German ship remained in view. Phantom-like the fleet had come,
phantom-like it had vanished in the dark and stormy night.
Meanwhile, to the intense relief of Plymouth, another British Squadron
hove in sight. Signals and messages were rapidly exchanged, and certain
cruisers and destroyers were at once detached for scouting work--their
duty being “to track the Germans, shadow them cautiously, and send back
news by wireless telegraphy of their latest movements.” The scouts, in
turn, were lost to view. Their orders were to cruise along an east and
west line some fifty miles from land, to meet twice a day, exchange
reports, and then return in opposite directions to the limits of their
beat.
At sunset the battleships and cruisers remaining at Plymouth went to
general quarters, and the crews were kept at their guns during the
night. Every officer and bluejacket felt the tension of the hour. None
knew what test of courage, skill, endurance the night or the morning
might exact from them. The honour of the Flag, the responsibility of
upholding great traditions, the safety of their country might suddenly
be entrusted to their keeping. The scene might well inspire English
hearts. For all remembered that hither came in those far-off days the
mighty fleets of Spain in the period of her power; and, again, it was
out yonder in the misty sea that once upon a time the Dutch admiral,
Van Tromp, flaunted his flag--jacks and pennants flying--in the face
of the fiery Blake, who accepted the defiance and at once attacked and
beat the Dutchman’s ships. The older navies of the kings and queens
of England had known how to exact the salutation of the Flag. And
Cromwell, too, had known. For in a treaty of his time it was provided
“that the ships of the United Provinces, as well those fitted out for
war as others, which should meet in the British seas any of the ships
of war of England, should strike their flag and lower their topsail
in such manner as had been any time practised before under any former
Governments.” Sir Cloudesley Shovel and Sir George Rooke--they, too,
had exacted homage to the Flag when Queen Anne was on the throne; and
no foreign navy had ventured to withhold the first salutation in the
long reign of Queen Victoria.
To the navy of King Edward VII., in this supreme moment, was committed
the maintenance of our marine supremacy.
Yet experienced officers were well aware that, with all the foresight
and sagacity that could be brought to bear, the fortune of war at sea
depended very much on what men still called chance. “Right or left,”
said Nelson, “it is all a matter of guess, and the world attributes
wisdom to him who guesses right.” Nelson himself had to hunt for the
French fleet many a time and oft; the American fleet had no news of
the Spanish ships for something like a fortnight in the fight for
Cuba; and in the war between Russia and Japan, the fleet of the former
was “a dark horse” to Admiral Togo for considerable periods. The game
of wits at sea, for which the other term is naval strategy, depends
on distances, the elements, the unforeseen. Specific programmes are
impossible, and the best-laid plans of admirals “gang oft agley.” Thus
it came about that in this critical juncture the British scouts failed
to get in touch with the potential enemy,--a failure almost attended
with dire results for England.
The Germans having given our scouts the slip (whether by luck or skill
was never known) crept back in the dark hours towards Plymouth. Then,
suddenly, their whole flotilla of destroyers, with lights out, and
steaming at full speed, made a desperate attempt to force an entrance
to the harbour. The rush was admirably planned. Anticipating partial
detection, and by means of clever feints, the torpedo craft sought
to attract the search-lights of the defence works to one particular
destroyer, hoping that the main division might thus be enabled to
make a successful dash, under the shadow of the shore, to the eastern
and western channels of the breakwater. But the manœuvre failed. In
the very nick of time the flashlights exposed the real and formidable
nature of the onslaught. The roar of the battery guns burst forth upon
the night, continuing with unabated fury until all but one of the
flotilla--which ran headlong upon the breakwater--were sunk or driven
off, damaged and defeated. The projected supplementary action of the
German battleships, now looming into view, thus became hopeless, if not
impossible.
A mighty cheer went up from all the British ships when this was
realised. It was their turn now to take the warpath, and the
Admiral,--Sir Lambert Meade,--saw that they took it instantly. In the
hearts of all, if not upon their lips, was the spirit of the stirring
English war-song:
“Who fears to die? Who fears to die?
Is there any here who fears to die
* * * * *
Shout for England!
Ho! for England!
George for England!
Merry England!
England for aye!”
Daylight was near at hand, and when it came, grey and mournful, over
the sullen sea, the tactics of the British admiral left the enemy in
doubt. An elaborate feint made with certain British battleships and
armoured cruisers led the Germans to suppose the intention was to drive
them back into the Atlantic; and ere they realised their error, the
greater number of the British ships steamed diagonally outside the
enemy, enclosing them within an imaginary line drawn from the Eddystone
to Lizard Point. The light cruisers were told off to harass the German
auxiliaries, and seeing the probable effect of this manœuvre, the enemy
opened fire, wasting powder and shell long before they were within
effective range. The British guns, however, remained silent until
the distance between the fleets was only four miles or less. Then the
British admiral gave the signal, and straightway four battleships and
eight armoured cruisers hurled shell after shell against the nearest of
the German ships. The detached section of the fleet that had steamed
westward along the coast, attacked with equal fury the other wing
of the invaders’ line. The Germans at first replied with spirit. In
every battle the winning cock must lose some feathers, and sorrow and
mourning were on their way to many an English home.
Presently there were signs of disaster and disablement among the
enemy’s ships. Caught between two fires, and deprived of the aid of
their destroyers, the position produced a demoralising effect upon
their men. The German plan of campaign had miscarried, and the crews
and gunners were at first disconcerted and then thrown into panic by
the concentrated and mathematical precision with which the British
guns riddled the leading ships of their column. Here and there, in
both fleets, the bursting shells produced wholesale slaughter and
mutilation. The worst disasters to the enemy’s ships, however, were
caused by the repeated shocks of the terrific projectiles, which
displaced the steel plates of their armour. Thus the rivets sprang,
and water crept in at a hundred holes. Two of the finest German
battleships, through the gaining weight of water, had their centre
of gravity gradually shifted. They foundered, and all hands were
lost--officers and men going bravely, calmly, to their doom.
The battleship _Wilhelm II._ became unmanageable and left the line,
and, at the same time it was seen that desperate attempts were being
made to give protection to one in particular of the auxiliaries--a
liner of great speed, that presently broke away and headed for the open
sea, hotly pursued by two light cruisers and one destroyer from the
British line.
Both remaining sections of the defending force now closed in upon
the Germans, their great guns doing more and deadlier work as the
range was lessened. One of the German battleships was now on fire,
and the great clouds of smoke that rose for a time so hid the ships
that firing was suspended. When the smoke cleared the British admiral
gave another signal, and then the deadly wasps of naval warfare--the
torpedo flotilla--swarmed in upon the enemy to complete the havoc and
destruction commenced by the great guns of our battleships.
England, sovereign of the seas, had won another victory. Her flag was
still supreme!
* * * * *
The scattered units of the German fleet had not only to seek safety
from their pursuers, but also, as the short day closed in, to battle
with a formidable gale. For the _Schiller_ and other ships that had
steamed westward, the position was one of appalling jeopardy. They had
to reckon with the terrors of a wild and rocky shore.
Less than three hundred miles from London, the westerly extremity of
England, grey and granitic, frowns on the roaring seas that beat in
vain upon its rocky bastions. Here the channels mingle with the mighty
ocean, and stupendous billows, tumbling shoreward, break on the cliffs
with a terrific roar that sometimes daunts the hardened miner at work
in the galleries that stretch beneath the ocean-bed. A little more
than a mile from the cliffs the Longship’s Lighthouse throws its rays
upon the spume of the tremendous waves, and away to the west lies the
granite group of the Scilly Isles.
The wind and the rain are twin rulers of these islands; and the yeasty
currents have swept many a gallant ship upon their jagged reefs. The
“Bishop” and his “Clerks” are always on the watch to shrive the souls
of shipwrecked mariners. It was here on the Gilstone Rock (near the
small islet of Roseviar) that Sir Cloudesley Shovel, returning from
the siege of Toulon, met with his tragic end. Driven off his course by
storms, his ship, the _Association_, was forced upon the rock, and in
a few minutes fell to pieces. In that night of dreadful memory, the
_Phœnix_, the _Romney_, and the _Firebrand_ met a like fate. The _St
George_ only narrowly escaped. Upwards of 2000 lives were lost in that
dread night, and since that far-off time many another ship has gone to
pieces in those hungry jaws.
It was around these ragged westerly islands that the storm raged with
especial fury on the night that followed the scattering of the German
fleet.